5 January 2014

Love, reign o'er me, Rain on me, rain on me

Hello 2014.

Today is the last day of the holidays.

I have paperwork to do, and one meeting to go to tomorrow, because...God, it makes me feel horribly, horribly guilty...but I don't want to go to work. I want to be at home with them. It always feels like the time goes so fast. So yeah, staying at home, mainly.

It's 2 years since I made a resolution to get a better work/life balance... not sure I've done it, but...well, I'm not unmotivated.

The boys have made a few million biscuits, some for us, some for Mycroft to take with him. And Mycroft has begun to sort out his things. Mainly lots and lots of text books for school.

My ankle is getting better - I can get about the flat okay, I just have to be careful.

Our calendar informs us that Sherlock will be having his school photos taken this week. He is pondering having his hair cut. I'm not sure he will - I think he should wait until it's warmer! Anyway, don't tell him, but he looks cute when he's glaring out from under his curls. Quite a contrast to Mycroft, who looks very dapper.

What else...well, it's still raining. We're going to start building an ark. Maybe on the allotment, after Reg growled at us for not digging it over yet. Or getting any seeds in the cold frames. And generally being fairweather allotmenteers who have gone into hibernation over winter.

Of course, because it currently looks like the Somme, Sherlock wants to dive headfirst into it and roll about. And so would the dogs. In fact, I might join them, if it's between that or digging it all up...

And now this...

Greg The Florist:

John almost jumped out of his skin when the door of the library opened.

"All right?" Greg frowned, as John held the book tightly against his chest.

"Yes, yes, you made me jump, that's all."

"What've you got there?" Greg flopped onto a nearby seat, causing a huge cloud of dust to almost obscure him. He sneezed violently.

"Um, it's a sort of...diary. Journal. About the estate and...things. How are you? Nice walk?"

Greg grinned and spread his arms. "Didn't get eaten by a tree...unless..." he staggered to his feet, heading for John as if he was going to fall over. "I....am....a.....zombie..treeeeeeeeee," he fell onto John, pretending to try and bite his neck, but doing a fairly reasonable job of just kissing it instead.

Well, you used to work a minimum 60-hour week, and now you're doing about 48 hours as standard, so that's an improvement. I mean, 48 hours is still a long week - I've been doing about that in the last month or two and I was knackered coming up to Christmas - but it's a lot better than it was :-)

I should probably feel more worried for John-the-trainee-florist finding himself in bed with a werewolf, but mostly I'm finding the idea of Greg-the-florist with two soft furry ears amusingly adorable. Possibly strokable :-p

"It's 2 years since I made a resolution to get a better work/life balance... not sure I've done it, . . . "

Having read the blogs from the beginning within the last 6 or 7 months, you definitely in the past year or so post far less often about bringing work home, working 15, 17, 19 or 24+ hour days, and far more often about taking time off. How posting tracks with what you're doing and how what you're doing tracks with what you & the family are feeling isn't for the Internet to say, but that's the tale the two blogs tell. :-)

formerlyAnon - when you put it like that, yes, I definitely am doing better. I think I still feel like I miss out on a lot - but that's because Sherlock can have thoroughly covered about 20 different topics with John between school and when I get home... And we don't see enough of Mycroft anyway, so any time when he's at home seems precious.

Nameless - I don't imagine you become very good at controlling your were-side straight away. I don't feel like I would be, anyway! And he's definitely a nice wolf as far as John is concerned.

P.s. Today's song lyric title made me read the whole post through a haze of warm fuzzy feeling. Thanks for reminding those of us lucky enough to share a tried and true love, whether it's with friends, partners or other kinds of family.

Makes me feel very warm too, that song. For obvious reasons ;) Although I'm afraid I was just thinking about the rain when I decided to use it in this instance. But did then listen to it on repeat a few times, with the happiest of memories in my head. :)

Taking Sherlock during the week should help with his transition from home-with-Mycroft to school-and-no-Mycroft.

About the work/life balance--I'd think it feels worse to you than it looks from the outside because of the bad luck with the holidays, but I agree with formerlyA, you certainly seem to be making a lot of progress in your balancing act. It's hard for anyone, really, and the more you're used to make work your whole world, the harder it is to shift, but you're doing fine from where I sit.

yay, Greg the Florist! :)I wonder if John will have occasion to be grateful for the protection of a friendly werewolf.I agree with Anon above, and ReRe, you've come a long way from a few years ago, and it's really inspiring. I'm sure the job would like to have as much of you as you're willing to give it, you have a lot of experience and skills and savvy by now that make you very valuable. But you have a life at home now too, and that's just as important. I think you'll know it by how good it feels, when you get to the "sweet spot" between work time and home time.S

Congrats to them RR new born babies are just the cutest thing :-) (they don't sleep enough though!)

The happy balance between home life and work life is a difficult thing to achieve Greg especially because in order to make the change to spending more time at home you've first got to really believe how important you are to your family.

I am also unconvinced that there's a sweet spot of work/life balance for most of us. It's always seemed that if one likes/loves/is satisfied by both, there's a constant push-pull, unless there's an overwhelming reason to focus on one - and that doesn't work long term.

I'm glad if it's not like that for everyone and would love it if someone would teach me how to get my head into that balanced, contented spot. I'm just happy if I can compartmentalize enough to be centered in the side of the 'balance' I'm in when I'm there.

well yeah, the sweet spot may be more of a seesaw... :Dcongrats on new babies, and bravely done! :)I'm now looking out at my flooded driveway and feeling somewhat akin to you guys with all the rain you've had... we had some proper snow and very cold temps here for a few days and now all of a sudden it's in the 40s and raining... ugh, I just hope it stops raining before it cools down again, enough to drain away and not just make a skating rink.oh, and if random-inernet-people get votes, I vote for long hair too! S

Yeah, not too long. And, very conveniently, half term starts on Valentine's day, so there's good chance of a tag team of babysitters - childminders, even, for Sherlock. If Anth, Mrs H and Mycroft don't all get better offers!!

Sherlock likes to ask me completely random 'how do you say......... in Italian' questions too. Always completely unrelated to what we're doing at the time, which is an insight to the multi-layers his mind works on.

Congratulations to the new aunts and moms and all. I've been getting the DVD from http://www.happiestbaby.com/ for all the new parents I know. (The book is good, but the DVD can be watched while you're desperately trying to get the kid to calm down.)

I'm a little alarmed at the thought of Greg-the-Werewolf-Florist, but I'm sure John will figure out what to do.

I hope your ankle feels better. Do you all need to plan what to put in the allotment for next year now, while you're digging over and cold framing things? Will you be growing anything fun like purple carrots?

Off Topic Thought of the Night: I'm watching a British television, and there's an Englishman in a cowboy hat. This is confusing me way more than it should. I suppose if we can steal scally caps y'all can steal cowboy hats, I just don't know why you'd WANT to...

SH--I was watching old Top Gear. They were sending local politicians around the track and one was dressed like Col. Sanders only with flair. I think him being a politician contributed, as there's only very specific circumstances under which an American politician will wear a cowboy hat. Also being half asleep.

You don't see a lot of cowboy hats in New York, but they are practical for anyone who has to spend many long hours in hot sun, with those brims. Otherwise they look heavy to me. (And like you want to live in Montana or Wyoming. ;))

ha, well, today I was full of good intentions... until an odd stabbing turned up in the mortuary, and then an even odder scene of crime... and by then I'd already been walking about more than I probably should, and definitely more than I'd intended.

And I don't make a habit of it. My business is, generally speaking, your business, these days.

For a start, the body has been...well, to give you Molly's opinion 'murdered two or three times'. And then the scene scotched some of our theories about why that might be, and opened out a whole new load of oddness. Some of which may be useful, some might have been planted or something, it's all..well..odd.

But then I was searching things online in the office and found a BBC news article about it - things not to say on your profile. It included lots of lines of the sort Mycroft detests. Those sort of vacuous things people say. "I like going out and staying in".... as the article puts it "you like existing, then?" :)

I saw on the news video of people surfin 60-foot waves off the coast of Europe. I mean, people flew there just to do that. (Who do they think is going to help them if they get in trouble, the Surfing Fairy?)

... I have exactly zero problem with people who want to risk their necks for fun; there's nothing wrong with wanting to challenge oneself and it's exciting, and why ever shouldn't people do what's fun and exciting and challenging if they only risk themselves? (If they have others depending on them--that's on them to figure out.) But to put other people's lives at risk for their fun, "enormously thoughtless" is the best possible construction to put on that.

Which is why I'm reserving judgement. I haven't even seen the pictures, I have no idea if these people have their own safety teams, or if they know that if they get in trouble they're on their own, or if there is indeed some other people who will then risk themselves in a rescue attempt. So not knowing any of that, I can't comment.

I hope you get who you're after and make it home quickly, Greg. Of course, you might not want to rush back after inflicting that on John, even with light sabers involved (which sounds kind of exciting), he might not be so forgiving. ;)

mm. bed? i know he'll be all over us in the morning demanding maple syrup with his pancakes, little pancake goblin that he is. it will be my penance for daring to try and solve a crime during evening hours.